Mentorship

Free* Entrepreneurship Coaching

One of my goals for 2022 is to give back more. This is my way of doing that.

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I can help you start or grow a business, pursue entrepreneurial dreams, and make an impact, by chatting for 1-2 hours (or more) every month or so.

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Message me on Twitter to apply

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When it runs
Who it's for
Benefits

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When it runs

• 7-10pm Sundays
• 3:15-4pm Tuesdays & Thursday

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Who it's for

*This is a free service if you are any of:

• Ambitious High School & University Students
• Professionals who are working but want to run their own business
• ‍NEXT Canada startups (current or an alum)
• Non-profits
• Someone I've worked with for at least a year
• Friends

And you...

• Want to start a business or already run one. The business would be aligned with UN Sustainability goals or what I consider to have a positive social impact. See how I define that here.
• Have a history of excellence. E.g. Top grades if a student without other achievements, or other indicators of high potential.
• Are humble
• Have a desire to learn, be coachable, and work hard.
• Have the ability to dedicate time to pursuing entrepreneurial goals.
• Have the ambition and desire to make a large positive impact on the world
• Can provide references
• Fit the above and I decide you seem cool and that I like you enough to want to help

I prefer working with people who match the following, however these are not requirements

• Women, minorities, and those who come from low-income or immigrant families
• Canadian citizens or permanent residents
• Vancouver residents
• Willing to pay it forward to help others like I helped them
• If for-profit, a B-Corp or willing to become a B-Corp
• Fun to work with, and open to friendship outside of mentorship (if appropriate)

Sound like you? Apply here and I'll get back to you!

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This is a paid service if you do not fit these requirements. Money isn't really why I'm doing this. That said, I'm open to offers to help others who don't meet the above requirements with my time if the offer is great and the amount time needed is low. I won't be putting together any proposals or documents, but I will talk to you and help you work through problems.

Feel free to make me an offer.

The benefits

What you'll learn

• Whatever you want - I act as a mentor to support you with whatever you need to learn to pursue your goals, which I care about if those goals help other people.

For people just starting out

If this is you, you probably don't know what you don't know, or what you need to know. So most often we'll cover these:

• 🌱 How to start a business, from a legal perspective - incorporation, getting legal stuff taken care of like shareholders agreements, selecting a law firm, dealing with ownership and co-founders, etc.
• 📚 Business basics - what marketing, sales, customer success, human resources, accounting and finance all mean, and how to start doing them to run a company.
• 🔨 How to create a product or service that people want that you can sell - even if you're not technical (ie. can't personally build the product or provide the service).
• 🔑 Figuring out what problems you should even be working on, to maximize earning potential, impact, and your own happiness and sense of fulfillment.
• And how to do all of this with little to no money.

For those who already started a business

They usually benefit most from my help on these:

• 🚀 Go-To-Market Strategies, ie. how to acquire customers cheaply and at scale. Most notably via performance marketing and growth hacking (Ads, SEO, A/B testing etc), marketing automation & operations, sales strategy, enablement and management, brand strategy, positioning, copywriting, community marketing (e.g. influencers, partnerships, social media, etc), as well as product-driven growth strategies (e.g. programmatic SEO, virality, retention, etc.)
• 💞 Company Culture - making your business a great place to work for you and with the best people possible, and working in such a way as to make it a success.
• 🔮 Product Strategy and Management - how to make sure you're reaching and maintaining product-market-fit (best solution to a market problem) with each new product or service release, and building a unique/competitive roadmap. Specifically, I follow the lean product methodology by Dan Olsen, design thinking, and agile development. I can also help you with your data or AI strategy.
• 🧲 Employer Branding and Recruitment - how to find and recruit great people to work with you, without going broke. Some examples include the how to efficiently post jobs so they're able to be found on every major job board without you having to individually manage each one, write and structure effective job descriptions and roles, define and career pages on your website.
• 💸 How to save a lot of money, mostly through using technology. I can walk you through how to effectively manage cashflow planning and budgeting, as well as other management accounting practices. More uniquely though, I can show you the hacks I used to save hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) on operational costs through just being scrappy and knowing what tools and resources exist.
• 💰 Fundraising - how to get others to give you money to build your dreams. I don't claim to be an expert at this, but I can share with you everything I've learned from raising money myself and from what I've learned from venture capitalists, angel investors, and other entrepreneurs.
• 🆘 Dealing with co-founder conflict, burnout, or any of the ultra-common Founder mental health or relationship problems that will arise at some point, such as imposter syndrome.